GVMERS

The year was 2006. The PlayStation 3 was fast approaching, and the creators of Sony’s most celebrated 3D platformers were hard at work creating experiences that would appeal to the upcoming console’s mature audience. Naughty Dog, the acclaimed creator of the kid-friendly Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter series, was busy developing Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, an action-adventure game that would follow a gun-toting daredevil’s journey into unknown territory. Sucker Punch Productions, which had recently risen to fame with its swashbuckling Sly Cooper series, was working on Infamous, a gritty action title starring an electricity-wielding superhero. And Insomniac games, which had fathered the lighthearted Spyro and Ratchet & Clank series, was on the verge of releasing a science fiction first-person shooter set in 1950s England. A shooter called Resistance: Fall of Man. With a lengthy single-player campaign and a robust multiplayer suite that mixed the realism of Activision’s Call of Duty with the fantastical of Bungie’s Halo, Resistance: Fall of Man seemed poised to become a massive franchise. And yet, despite receiving an initial groundswell of support and multiple sequels, over a decade later and the name Resistance is all but absent from the current PlayStation ecosystem. Where the Uncharted and Infamous series enjoyed acclaim well into the life of the PlayStation 4, Insomniac’s Resistance franchise would ultimately fail to escape the orbit of the PlayStation 3, collapsing almost as soon as it would peak with the release of Resistance 3 in 2011. This is the story of the rise and fall of the Resistance series.

Today, we're excited to show you what's in store for 2018!

We look back at the troubled development of Rainbow Six Patriots, as we look forward to the upcoming Operation Outbreak expansion. In December of 2015, Ubisoft released Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. The eleventh entry in the first-person shooter series about counter-terrorist unit Rainbow, Siege bucked tradition. Where past Rainbow Six titles featured both single-player and multiplayer offerings in which players battled opposing forces across sprawling environments, Siege focused exclusively on multiplayer content in which teams of players worked together to attack or defend small, yet highly destructible arenas. While Siege suffered a rough launch, marred by game-breaking bugs, server issues, and a lack of content, Ubisoft worked candidly with the game’s community to improve it following its release, and it has since grown into one of the most popular competitive shooters on the market. But while Siege’s success is familiar to many, less known are the murky circumstances in which the title first emerged. That before Ubisoft set out to redefine the Rainbow Six series as a premier multiplayer-only experience, the series was gearing up to deliver what might have been the most evocative and contemporary single-player narrative ever featured in a Ubisoft game. A dramatic tale that would have seen Team Rainbow fighting for the soul of America as they both descended into madness. This is the story of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6: Patriots.

For as long as video games have existed as consumer products, there have been games based on non-gaming franchises. Movies, television series, music, plays, and many more have all found their way into the medium of games – and while some go on to become coveted pieces of the video game industry’s landscape, most quickly recede into the background. A lack of time, talent, and creative freedom condemns them to mediocrity – or worse. The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise was no exception. While far from the worst that the world of licensed games has to offer, the Pirates of the Caribbean video games, designed to quickly and cheaply cash in on the movies’ releases, consistently failed to move the needle. While the 2007 video game tie-in for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End offered surprisingly engaging voice performances and – for its time – decent graphics, its core gameplay had little to offer. But then, in 2009 a Vancouver-based development studio known as Propaganda Games would announce the development of a new Pirates of the Caribbean game, one without the star power of Johnny Depp or Keira Knightly. An ambitious project that would use the Pirates of the Caribbean universe as the canvas for an original set of characters, scenarios and mechanics unfettered by the franchises’ normal stalwarts. A swashbuckling adventure that, had it ever been released, might have stood toe-to-toe with the best that the video game industry had to offer. This is the story of Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned.

In the early 2000s, World War 2 shooters were seemingly everywhere. Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and an endless stream of clones and knock-offs pervaded both personal computers and home consoles. While fun, these experiences were often formulaic, casting players time and time again as frontline soldiers in bombastic, but heavily scripted action sequences across the war’s greatest flashpoints. Running and gunning alone into the thick of battle was the name of the game, with little in the way of realism. In the midst of this glut of homogenous experiences, one series of World War 2 shooters stood out above the rest: Brothers in Arms. Developed by Gearbox Software and published by Ubisoft, Brothers in Arms emphasized real-world tactics and teamwork over mindless gunplay, forcing players to work together with their in-game allies to overcome conflicts. While Brothers in Arms would experience a wave of popularity following its debut in 2005, bolstered by its affecting narrative and unique gameplay, its fame would gradually wane overtime. Changing market conditions, a stream of middling mobile releases, and Gearbox Software’s shifting priorities would slowly but surely drown the series out of the public conscience. And though there is reason to hope that the series may yet live again, an ill-fated attempt to revitalize the series in 2011 suggests that a new entry may still be far on the horizon. This is the rise and fall of Brothers in Arms.

Maximum strength. Maximum armor. Maximum speed. To PC gamers in the late 2000s, these words were the credo of a futuristic first-person shooter unlike anything else around it – Crysis. Developed by Frankfurt-based developer Crytek, Crysis dazzled the industry with its gorgeous graphics and open-ended gameplay, which encouraged players to make the most of both their own, innate abilities, and the environment around them. It was an uneven experience, one whose final third betrayed its strongest ideas – yet it was one that found its way into the heart of many a player. And within a year following its release, it would be complimented by Crysis Warhead, an expansion in some ways even stronger than the base game itself. But as the years passed, Crytek would gradually migrate the franchise to home consoles, reinventing the series to better suit its new platforms for Crysis 2. All the same time and effort that had gone into making the first game was there, and then some – but it lacked much of what made its predecessor special. A third entry, Crysis 3, would make an earnest effort to address players’ complaints, and bridge the two disparate directions the series had driven in – but the moment had passed, and players had moved on. This is the rise and fall of Crysis.

Following the release of Command and Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight in March of 2010, the future of the Command & Conquer series was uncertain. The acclaimed real-time strategy series had enjoyed an incredible heyday, with a procession of critically acclaimed titles across both personal computers and consoles. But EA Los Angeles’ Tiberian Twilight, which had vastly departed from the acclaimed real-time strategy series’ tenets, proved to be immensely unpopular with long-time fans and critics alike, casting the series’ future in doubt. And yet, from its ashes, a new Command & Conquer title would emerge: Command & Conquer: Generals 2. Taking place after the events of Command & Conquer: Generals and its expansion, Zero Hour, Generals 2 – from what little information was made available of it – seemed a solid counter to Tiberian Twilight’s many mistakes; a return to the franchise’s roots powered by EA’s graphically impressive Frostbite engine. But before fans could confirm whether or not Generals 2 was truly the reversion that the series needed, it was announced that the game would be converted into a free-to-play platform simply titled Command & Conquer. And that it would launch – in an aberration for the series – without a single-player campaign. Fans would rail against the game’s abrupt change in direction, prompting Victory Games, the game’s developers, to do their best to address fans’ concerns. But try as they might, Victory struggled to make headway on the project – until it was abruptly and unceremoniously cancelled. This is the story of Command & Conquer: Generals 2.

In 1998, a little known company named Valve released a first-person shooter named Half-Life and changed the face of gaming. Where other shooters struggled to provide even a semblance of a story, Half-Life had brains to match its brawns; a stirring tale featuring a realistic human cast and a protagonist that was more than a hand and a gun unfolded before the player’s eyes as they progressed through each level. As Valve grew, so too did Half-Life’s reputation, with Half-Life 2 in 2004 once again revolutionizing the genre, and its episodic expansions, Half-life 2: Episode One and Episode Two, further raising the bar. The series didn’t release consistently, and occasionally suffered unexpected and painful setbacks; but when it did, it seemed as if Valve could do no wrong – until the series suddenly stopped. Shifting priorities, a lack of motivation, and other, more nebulous factors would lead Valve to put Half-Life on ice in the middle of its prime, leaving a generation of gamers adrift, and an opus unfinished. And yet – Half-Life lives on. Be it in the innumerable games and series it inspired or provided the computative bedrock for, an undying stream of mods, or other media based on the franchise, Half-Life’s DNA is permanently embedded in the fabric of the video game industry, and will likely remain so for some time. As sad as it is that a Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or a Half-Life 3 will likely never happen, and as frustrating as it is that Valve remains belligerent as to precisely why, the series, for the most part, has only really fallen… out of Valve’s hands. This is the rise and fall of Half-Life.

It had been four years since Blizzard released StarCraft, and its expansion, Brood War for the PC. The science fiction-themed real-time strategy game proved to be a critical and commercial smash upon its release in 1998, drawing in millions of players around the globe to battle for the fate of humanity – or rather, the “Terrans” – in the game’s riveting single-player campaign, and trade wits in its competitive multiplayer mode. It was a revelation for both casual and professional fans of the genre – and they wanted more. Their wishes would be answered when Blizzard and Nihilistic Software would reveal StarCraft: Ghost, an action-stealth game set in the StarCraft universe, for home consoles. Centered on Nova, a powerful and deadly psionic warrior, Ghost quickly became a highly anticipated game due to its ambitious and varied combat system, and for offering a novel new way to experience a beloved universe. However, despite a strong initial showing, Ghost would spend the next several years fighting for its life. Revisions, delays, and a change in development studio would push the game further and further into the periphery – before disappearing entirely. Ghost would become its very own namesake; always up in the air in the sea of possibility, but never tangible. And yet from its corpse, Nova would survive, slowly becoming one of the StarCraft universe’s biggest characters thanks to a litany of multimedia appearances. This is the story of StarCraft: Ghost.

In the early days of the PlayStation 2, Zipper Interactive would debut a third-person shooter called SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs. Authentic, tactical, team-based, and online at a time where few other PlayStation titles were, SOCOM took the home console by storm. It gave Sony’s exclusives a more mature face, provided multiplayer-centric shooters a new standard to compete against, and helped single-handedly move the PlayStation 2’s network adapter and headset into gamers’ homes. The debut of SOCOM 2 the following year created an immediate classic, and confirmed SOCOM as a franchise that would be with PlayStation for years to come – even as unsavoury hackers attempted to ruin players’ enjoyment. Yet try as SOCOM would, lightning never seemed to strike thrice in the eyes of the series faithful. SOCOM 3, Combined Assault, Confrontation, and many more would all proceed to be good, if not great games in their own right – but whether helmed by Zipper or Slant Six, SOCOM never found its third pillar on which it could rest. And just as it seemed as if the series finally might, SOCOM 4 would both trip over its design, and fall into a hole burrowed out of the PlayStation Network Outage of 2011. SOCOM was shattered, Zipper was shuttered, and one by one, the entire series would go offline – though the hardcore would continue to find ways to keep the series’ flame alive. This is the rise and fall of SOCOM.

In the late 1990s, horror games were on the rise. The hardware capabilities of Sony’s PlayStation enabled developers to craft immersive 3D experiences that married the atmosphere and shock of Hollywood’s most terrifying pictures with the agency of games – and players couldn’t get enough of them. Among these titles was a twisted, yet comparatively demure experience called Silent Hill. Developed by a motley crew of talented Konami employees, Silent Hill flipped contemporary horror game tropes on their head, casting the player as an everyman in search of his daughter in a fog-enshrouded town. The game would be well received, and followed up by three sequels on the PlayStation 2 that would catapult the Silent Hill name into horror gaming stardom. However, shifting interests within Konami would lead the Japanese company to disband the team that developed these early titles, and outsource all future games in the series to studios in Europe and America. While this move would produce some genuine highlights, mixed efforts and a lack of care on Konami’s part would result in Silent Hill gradually becoming a shell of its former self; a legend brimming with potential that always seemed to fall short of its glory days through some issue or another. This is the rise and fall of Silent Hill.

In the late 1990s, few video game developers were as synonymous with PC role-playing games as Black Isle Studios. Established in 1996 as a subsidiary of Interplay Entertainment, Black Isle helped create and foster an array of beloved isometric RPG series, including Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, and Fallout. Of all its works, Fallout set itself apart with its 50s Americana-inspired post-apocalyptic setting and open-ended design, which enabled players to craft their journey through the irradiated remains of the United States with an unprecedented level of freedom. Whether allowing them to be the scourge of all that is living, a pacifist capable of convincing their foes to surrender, or a straggler just trying to get by, both Fallout and its sequel, Fallout 2, exemplified the power of player choice in games, and served as hallmarks of Black Isle's talent. After years of false starts, development on a third mainline entry in the series for the PC materialized, one that would have seen the player embroiled in a plot involving escaped convicts, a mysterious virus, and a calamitous space station. Unfortunately, despite coming within striking distance of being completed, both this project and Black Isle as a whole would be shut down in late 2003, snuffed out by Interplay's financial woes and shifting priorities. Their ends were tragic - yet both Fallout and the talent that shepherded it would live on, with the former becoming one of the biggest names in gaming, and the latter joining a new development studio that would eventually incorporate elements of their cancelled entry into their works. This is the story of Van Buren, the original Fallout 3.

When Halo: Combat Evolved landed on the original Xbox in 2001, the video game industry changed dramatically. Master Chief and the UNSC’s battle with the pious forces of the Covenant helped legitimize the first-person shooter on consoles, established Microsoft as a contender in the industry, and launched one of the most venerated sagas in the history of video games. Since the franchise has traded hands, from its creators at Bungie, to its successors at 343 Industries, opinions of newer titles have cooled – yet the series remains a powerhouse. As with any franchise that has lasted several decades, however, an abundance of failed concepts, pitches and ideas are to be expected. Halo is no different – yet its most notable failed projects are a diverse and eclectic bunch, wandering far outside the fine shooting and vehicle mechanics that the series’ numbered entries exemplify. From a melee-focused action game, to a Mega Bloks platformer teeming with gags, the history of Halo’s cancelled games and concepts embodies the franchise’s versatility.

When a video game is cancelled, it can be difficult to judge how it would have fared if history had gone differently. Most of the time, the public is only treated to a small snapshot of the title’s content; some screenshots, a bit of canned footage or maybe even a vertical slice or two. As promising as titles like StarCraft: Ghost or Star Wars 1313 might have appeared during their brief existence, the reality is that the world only ever gleaned an idea of what these projects might have offered upon release. Even their developers have no way of knowing exactly how they would have netted out. Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro’s Silent Hills is no different. Like so many failed projects before it, Silent Hills remains little more than a concept; a dream in the minds of its fans and the people that were working on it. But on the road to its demise, it birthed one of the most celebrated horror experiences of the past decade. A Playable Teaser, or P.T., that provided a sense of terror that was absent from so many of its predecessors, and helped reinvest a generation of players in the macabre. Video game cancellations are tragic, and leave the world wondering what could have been. But they can leave behind more than just ideas – they can impart tangible experiences that are great in and of themselves, and serve as an impetus for change. This is the story of Silent Hills.

In the late 1990s, the PlayStation was abound with racing games. Gran Turismo, Need for Speed, Ridge Racer, and many more provided players with plenty of hours of breakneck entertainment behind digital steering wheels. Among these games, however, was a decidedly different experience from Newcastle-based developer Reflections Interactive. Simply titled Driver, the game focused more on emulating the thrill of Hollywood-style car chases than on pure racing, allowing players to unleash their inner Steve McQueen across the United States’ roughest roads. The game was immensely successful, and quickly spawned a lesser, yet ambitious sequel that allowed players to exit and hijack cars nearly a year before Rockstar allowed players to do the same in Grand Theft Auto III. Unfortunately, the subsequent popularity and quality of the Grand Theft Auto games would prove to be an albatross around Driver’s neck. Unable to escape the former series’ transcendental fame, Reflections would gradually inject more and more of its open-world trappings into Driver, leading to some major embarrassments, and the gradual loss of the franchise’s identity. Finally, after switching multiple publishers and coming to terms with Driver’s strengths, Reflections would transition the series back into pure, car-chasing action with 2011’s Driver: San Francisco. The cost of doing so left Reflections uninterested in doing much else with the series – but resulted in an immensely entertaining experience; one that righted its predecessors’ missteps, while offering clever new ideas that helped release it from Grand Theft Auto’s shadow. This is the rise and fall of Driver.

Starting tomorrow, we'll bring you our very first episode in our history of the Red Dead series!

For a brief period of time in the early 2000s, skateboarding video games were inescapable. The countercultural sport had been adapted into bits and bytes many times in the past, but following the genre-defining release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in 1999, it became one of the hottest commodities in gaming. Year after year, players couldn’t stop shredding elaborate digital combos, and developers couldn’t stop pumping out opportunities for players to do so. By 2007, however, the genre was getting tired. Its best games were struggling to advance beyond what had been established at the end of the preceding millennium, and its worst made it seem bloated and exploitative. It’s in this window that EA Black Box introduced the world to Skate. Where Pro Skater and most of the titles that succeeded it depicted skating as it appeared on TV – sensationalized and effortless – Skate attempted depict the sport with greater realism than ever before. Performing a trick meant moving the joystick in a way that mimicked whatever it is one wanted to perform, rather than press a button to instantly grind or ollie. Skate would go on to become a critical and commercial darling, spawning a spin-off and two equally popular sequels in less than three years – only to disappear without a trace. Despite possessing considerable goodwill, extraneous factors would lead EA to abandon the series while it was ahead, leaving players hoping for a fourth Skate title out in the cold. Yet rather than move on, Skate’s fan base would only become more voracious overtime, transforming Skate 4 from an idle fantasy, into one of the most talked about video games that has never existed; a curse of unrequited love that continues to haunt EA to this very day on social media.

Space. Cold, dark, and endless, the Earth’s final frontier has long served as the backdrop for all manner of horrifying fiction, from the heart-pounding terror of Alien, to the cerebral drama of System Shock. Where other classic horror settings require the addition of fantastical stalkers to put the lives of their characters at risk, space alone tears apart anything that dares confront it unprepared; uncaringly, unflinchingly, and in total silence. When EA Redwood Shores debuted the survival horror game Dead Space in 2008, they succeeded in both capturing the inherent wickedness of its setting, and delivering an experience that played more sublimely than any other horror game before it. Rather than attempt to generate tension with sluggish tank controls and other arcane mechanics, Dead Space made Isaac Clarke’s hellish march through a zombie-infested flagship as intuitive to control as it was scary. Players lapped it up, Redwood Shores became Visceral Games, and a small barrage of cross-media content followed, including an unexpectedly solid spin-off on the Wii, and an even greater sequel. Eventually, however, the demands that the franchise cater to a wider audience caught up with it, and Visceral Games released Dead Space 3 – a solid action title that exemplified its creators’ competency, but failed to fully capture the sense of horror that had made its predecessors so beloved. The series faded away, and its developers, despite their pedigree, would follow shortly after.

At the dawn of the PlayStation 3’s life, Sony promised that their first high-definition console would transform the video game industry. Its hardware would trounce whatever the competition had to offer. Its online capabilities would bring people together in revolutionary ways. And – most importantly of all – its games would astound players like nothing before. Eight Days was one of those titles. A third-person action game from Sony Interactive Entertainment’s London Studio, Eight Days promised prospective PlayStation 3 owners a high-octane experience, one in which an unlikely duo would take on a criminal enterprise across America. Its intensive gunplay and chest-pumping set pieces seemed like a blast, and its graphics looked good – maybe a little too good. However, before the world could judge whether the game was all Sony cracked it up to be, the company would swoop in and cancel it two years after the PlayStation 3’s launch. Like so many of the promises that were made at the console’s outset, Eight Days was pushed to the side as Sony sought to prioritize what was profitable, and what its development houses did well in the midst of the PlayStation 3’s sagging trajectory. London Studio’s ambitious shooter could have found its way into the hearts of many a gamer – but with London’s pedigree suggesting the studio would be much better suited making other types of games, it was never given the chance to do so. This is the story of Eight Days.